-LRB- CNN -RRB- I 'm Candida Moss and I am professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame . I was an adviser on the `` True Cross '' episode and served as one of the many on-camera experts in CNN 's `` Finding Jesus '' series , which currently airs on Sundays .

Viewers were invited to tweet and post their questions on the `` Finding Jesus '' Facebook page during the show . Below are some of the more interesting questions and my answers to them . My apologies to everyone I did n't get to . Feel free to tweet your questions to me directly .

Herb Scribner : Can anyone explain to me what the Bible 's deal is with 40 days/nights ?

Moss : It 's more an interest in the number 40 . In the Hebrew Bible the people of Israel wander in the wilderness for 40 years before they reach the Holy Land . The flood lasts for 40 days and nights ; Moses spends 40 days and nights on the mountain ; Goliath spends 40 days encouraging the Israelites to challenge him before David steps up ; 40 is a common age for people to be when they get married ; in the book of Judges it is always 40 years between judges ; and David and Solomon each reigned for 40 years . What we can take away from all of this is that people in the ancient world saw 40 as suggesting a full , complete period of time . It 's sort of like a narrative stock number , in the way that modern jokes follow the rule of three .

Yalanda M. Price : Was there any division between the followers of Jesus and the followers of John the Baptist ?

Moss : One of the interesting things about the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist is that John does n't lay down his tools and follow Jesus after he baptizes him . Nor , it seems , did John 's disciples . They had separate ministries and , while there may have been contact between the two groups , they were also de facto competitors in the ancient religious marketplace . There are some hints in the New Testament that Jesus and his followers had to differentiate themselves from John by stating that Jesus ' baptism was better -LRB- Acts 11:6 -RRB- and countering the idea that Jesus was actually John raised from the dead -LRB- Matthew 14:2 -RRB- Some scholars argue that these references are evidence of tension between followers of Jesus and followers of John .

Mark Goodacre answers your questions about the Shroud of Turin .

Jeffery Graff : Can the DNA tests on the bones indicate whether he is a Jew or even whether he is of the tribe of Levi ?

Moss : I 'm so glad someone brought up DNA . The DNA tests on the Bulgarian bones yielded only mitochondrial DNA -LRB- DNA passed down by the mother -RRB- , not the more reliable nuclear DNA -LRB- the kind of DNA referred to in forensic investigations -RRB- . In the original study of the Bulgarian relics -LRB- of which I was a part -RRB- the mitochondrial DNA revealed that the Bulgarian relics were of `` probable Semitic origin . '' Thinking back to my time in the laboratory with the Copenhagen scientists , I recall that the lead investigator estimated that the probability was about 75 % . The episode last night stated things a little too sharply when it said that the bones were from a Middle-Eastern man .

As for the more specific question about the genetics of Jews and members of the tribe of Levi : Current scientific technology does not reveal this kind of information even if start-up genetic testing companies promise this kind of information .

Cyndi Rosenthal : Are there any other historical references of John the Baptist outside of the Bible ?

Daniel José Camacho : Any extra-biblical sources that shed light on historical figure of John the Baptist ?

Moss : -LRB- These questions are on a similar topic , so I 've chosen to answer them together . -RRB- Actually there is external attestation for the life and importance of John the Baptist . This is important because it 's fairly rare to find this kind of evidence for ancient figures outside the writings of their followers . The Jewish historian Josephus mentions John the Baptist in his book , `` The Jewish Antiquities . '' Josephus describes John as a `` good man '' who possessed `` virtue '' and had `` great influence '' over the people . According to Josephus , Herod put John the Baptist to death because he was afraid that he might raise a rebellion . This gives us another -- arguably more historical -- perspective on why John was executed and provides further evidence about just how important John was in his own day .

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Daniel José Camacho : Wait , how did Jesus get `` Our Father '' prayer from Johnny B ??? Did n't catch that .

Moss : I 'm also really glad someone brought this up , because I wondered about it too . In the Gospel of Luke , one of Jesus ' disciples says , `` Lord , teach us to pray , as John taught his disciples . '' It 's an interesting request that tells us something about John the Baptist 's ministry and the demanding characters of Jesus ' disciples ! In Luke , Jesus responds to this request by teaching them the Lord 's Prayer . We do n't know that the Lord 's Prayer came from John , and personally I do n't think it did ; I think this is just how Luke shaped his version of events . But if you were just reading Luke you could come to that conclusion .

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Religion professor Candida Moss appears in each episode of the program

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Moss was part of the original study to determine if relics found in Bulgaria could be the bones of John the Baptist .